Punch (67.1874)

September 5, 1874.)

PUNCH, OK THE LONDON CHART VARL

95

“ BUS-MEASURE.”

Bus-Driver. “ Never see the Comet ?! Why, wherever could you ’a’-”

{Notices Shortness of “ Ge'tleman’s ’’ hair, &c., and hesitates.) “ Howsomever-’’

Passenger (relieving his embarrassment). “ Whereabouts was it ?”

Driver. “ Well, I’ll Tell yer. It was about the Length o’ this yere
Bus FROM THE FORRARDEST LEADER IN THE GREAT BEAR ! ”

SAINT PARTRIDGE.

Some most crack-jaw Saints there are
In whatever Calendar:

Now the almanack perfidious
Gives the First to Saint Algidius.

Pray, old fellow, who are you ?

Had you gaiters for apparel P
Did you tramp the turnips through,
With a double-barrel?

August made St. Oyster ours:

Now September’s misty hours
Find us taking joyous trouble
O’er green swede and golden stubble.
Down each lonely lingering dell
Silently the shadows soften:

Where’s the poet who could tell
What he sees so often ?

Hail, Aigidius ! No complaint
Make against September’s saint:

Tu patronus es perdicum ! . . .

Ana they ’re asses who don’t like ’em.
Partridge-breast with woodcock-thigh,
People say, is more insidious.
Pending that discovery, I
Vote for S. ACgidius.

Such a Saint must be a true brick:

Are, avis ! that’s his rubric.

In good faith we ’ll celebrate him,
Shooting fairly, yet certatim !

When Eve’s rosy fingers paint
All the West, a hungry bevy
Home we ’ll tramp, and toast the Saint,
If our bags are heavy.

Monkey-Worship, Ancient and Modern.

A full-grown specimen of the Abyssinian Dog-headed
Monkey has been presented to the Museum of the Uni-
versity of Geneva. A contemporary mentions that this
monkey is engraved upon the monuments of ancient
Egypt, that mummies of it have been found in good
preservation, and that the old Egyptians worshipped it
as the emblem of the god Thoth. Monkey-worship is
not yet extinct. Are not Ritualist Clergymen the apes
of Romish Priests, and are there not Ladies who adore
Ritualist Clergymen ?

“SNOOTING.”

Being the substance of a Paper meant to be read at the Belfast
meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science. Section ; Natural History. Subsection : Biology.

There are certain subjects which although old are yet ever fresh
and new; and Snooling is one of them. Treated more or less
exhaustively by a long range of writers, beginning with the elder
Pliny and ending with old Doctor Jacob Townsend, there may
yet perhaps be found some characteristics of the subject still un-
developed, upon which the student of to-day may dilate with
pleasure to himself and profit to his readers. In the few words
which I propose to devote to this interesting investigation, I shall
treat the topic in no spirit of sedentary sentimentalism, but in its
largest and most oleaginous entirety.

And first it may he remarked that legitimate Snooling has changed
its character in a very peculiar manner since the sinking of the
Royal George. . It is no longer simply elementary, and more than
partially adhesive ; the pride of the peasant, and the detestation of
the. peer: but, having aggrandised to itself the many essentials
which it has gathered from penultimate generations, it has from
them elaborated in a regular and well-defined series the truest and
tenderest thesis that can occupy the most calculating cosmopolite.

But the careless and superficial theorist may ask us what we
consider to be the true meaning of the verb “ to snool.” To answer
this in the most satisfactory manner, it is, perhaps, better to say
what it is not, rather than what it is. Snooling is not a method of
bleaching linen, nor is it a scheme of logical induction. It is no
plan for fixing hat-pegs in a passage, nor is it a mode of treating
neuralgia with treacle. It can hardly he called a modification of
the railway block system, and to state that it is a substitute for the
existing mode of collecting the Income-tax would be to bring down
on our heads a shower of indignant denial. It is none of these

things. To snool fairly and honourably, and in such a way that
while purely positive its influence shall be spread over the largest
area, is certainly a very precious talent, and the man who snools
with no other thought than self, is a contemptible and procrastinat-
ing iconoclast.

Cases of abnormal snooling sometimes occur, and are particularly
interesting. I know of an evangelical clergyman in Hampshire
who regularly snools twice a day while Convocation is sitting; and
there is an elderly maiden lady who resides in a remote village in
one of the most secluded districts in the West Riding, who very
rarely snools at all, but when she does so, it is invariably the reverse
way. The tanner of Walton-on-the-Naze, who snooled with double
beats whenever his mother-in-law was staying with him, is scarcely
a case of legitimate snooling; but the well-known case of the
hatter and vestryman at Tadcaster, who could only snool with the
assistance of a little boy, who helped to hasten the reaction, and
restore those balances which had been so seriously disturbed by the
paroxysm, is a representative example of this neglected but beauti-
ful art.

I would beg to submit to the Association one word of advice
before I conclude. Avoid all collusive and saponaceous snooling.
Do not be led away by those who tell you that so did the grand old
Snoolers of the Middle Ages. It is.not so ; the conscientious Snooler
is as careful of his antecedents in the past as he is of his more
obtrusive relatives in the present.

How fair a sight is the steadfast snool of a venerable and respected
old age. Granulated, perhaps, and it may be partially palpable,
but rich with its peculiar positivism, and redolent of an elevated
antagonism. This is indeed the snool of the poet and the painter,
the walrus and the carpenter, and to attain to it should be the aim
of us all, especially of members of that British Association for thu
Advancement of Science to which I have had the honour of com-
municating this Paper.